The Importance of Discussing Ideas

- by Michelle Chaffee

Michelle Chaffee is a 7th and 8th grade science teacher at Silver Lake Regional School in Kingston, Massachusetts. Michelle noticed that the concept of systems reemerged throughout the year as students discussed various topics in science and discovered that “right” or “wrong” answers are often not the focus in science investigations. Michelle has enthusiastically shared her experiences at science state and national conferences.

I teach 7th and 8th grade science at Silver Lake Regional School District in Kingston Massachusetts, a suburb approximately 40 miles from Boston. Our district is a school union that includes three towns, Kingston, Halifax and Plympton with a fairly homogeneous population. Students from all three towns come with a slight variation of science experience, though we make an ongoing effort to articulate our curriculum.

I originally became involved with the EaSiE project as I hoped to provide my students with an understanding of Earth as a system. My goal was to develop learning opportunities that would be memorable and interesting as well as aligned with the Massachusetts state learning standards. The experience more than met my expectations, and my students benefited while we covered Earth as a system as well as every other lesson that I taught them during the year. Because of the experience with these lessons, my students have developed an in depth grasp of the complexity of a system.

I immediately adopted “The Bike as a System” lesson as a lab activity to begin the year. It was a perfect way to let students get their feet wet doing science and thinking critically. I started out with a probe that had a list of objects and asked them to circle anything that they thought was a system. Some students were very concerned about “getting the right answer”, and I wanted them to know from the beginning that wasn’t always the objective. If they already knew all the answers then why would they do that activity? The probe led to a discussion of what it means to be a system and a working definition went up on the board after some discussion. Next I rode a bike into the room with my helmet on and asked them, “Is the bike a system?” At this point my students couldn’t wait to get their hands on the bike and talk about it. I let them investigate the parts and interactions while they worked in small groups to answer questions about the bike as a system. This lesson elicits amazing discussion about systems, sub systems, input, output, and the boundary of a system. Student disagreements during discussions are common and really make them think and justify their answers. This is a wonderful opportunity to make them aware that I won’t always judge whether their answers are “right” or “wrong”. A girl this year was adamant that the bike couldn’t be a system by itself because it didn’t work without a rider. She was prepared to justify her answers to her group and her classmates. Her diligence was admirable, and she convinced her group and many of her classmates. Her arguments were well thought out and helped her classmates understand what input is and the importance of identifying the boundary of the system.

The following day we went outside, and students worked in groups to find a natural system that they could look at and answer the same questions. Students often asked for examples and so, depending on the group, we brainstormed some examples together before they chose their system. A boy in my class once picked up a rock and wanted to know if the rock was a system. His partner immediately said it is part of the soil and that maybe the soil was a system. That led to a discussion of what the soil was made of and the idea that there were a lot of outside influences that might go into making soil. In a group discussion that followed, students brought up related topics, including the rock cycle and the water cycle. It is unusual for very complex ideas such as these to come out of a discussion so early in the year. I couldn’t have had a better segue to introduce the concept of the Earth as a system.

The systems lessons come up again and again in class. Students use their knowledge of systems to understand the complex topics that we cover in life science and physical science, not just earth science. For example, when we cover cells in the seventh grade students notice that the organelles are subsystems of the cell and organelles can be considered systems themselves. They make statements such as, “A body is a system made of systems like the nervous system and the cardiovascular system, and those systems are made of cells, but a cell can be considered a system too.” They seem to be able to grasp the information in a more meaningful way; they understand that we are sometimes simplifying for the sake of understanding something, and they grasp the hierarchal relationship of the parts.

After students have the experience with the systems lessons we consider weather. I have students start class doing a type one John Collins writing assignment using the prompt: “How does weather affect your life?” These types of assignments have a certain number of lines, and they are not necessarily correct, just a stream of consciousness. We then discuss their very entertaining answers and ideas about how weather affects their lives. I have them brainstorm information contained in a typical weather forecast following the opener and discussion. Students then use the list to talk about how each factor is measured and then generate a list of information they will record for two weeks. They typically record temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, and wind speed. The temperature data we collect is then graphed and sometimes wind speed is graphed as well. Students can make sense of their graphs as they have experienced first hand what the weather has been like. This first graph experience can really lay the groundwork for understanding that the graph is a picture that tells a story - one they experienced. I have them write about how the weather impacted their life on each of the days that they graphed. We have visited the NOAA buoys site to collect data for graphing as well. It is a wonderful way for students to discover the technology that is used to collect weather data. I ask students to compare the weather data at the buoys on a particular day to the weather that they are experiencing. I would not have introduced this information to my students had I not attended this workshop. The buoy data has led to very complex questions by students about the interactions between air and water, as the temperature at the buoy can be quite different from the land temperature, for example.

Pupils contemplate the weather as a system when we are doing our weather data collection. After we collect the weather data the first day, we break into groups the try to list the “stuff” that makes up the earth. The lists that the groups make include the oceans, rivers, lakes, mountains, land and air typically, but students bring up rain, snow, ice, lava, etc. Students in the class are quick to point out how these all fit into one of the three categories: water, land, and air. Discussion of how water, land, and air interact as a system and are therefore responsible for weather come from this activity and even lead to discussions of how climate is different from weather. At some point some students start to realize we are still working on systems; some students will ask if everything in science is a system. This experience really helps them to make connections that they may not otherwise make.

We used several quotes about weather and climate and students are able to understand exactly what weather and climate are. One of the quotes that another teacher in our cohort gave was Weather is clothes you wear and climate is the clothes you buy. That leads to great discussions as students all seem to really grasp the meaning, and they enthusiastically share their understanding. Weather and climate continually come up during discussions of ecosystems and habitat later in the year, and students contemplate how climate change is going to affect the systems they are studying. Pupils explore how climate change has already affected ecosystems and habitat, from earlier springs to shorter winters, by looking at real data. Deep learning takes place as we have painted a broad picture that encompasses interactions among so many different systems.

I have benefited from this experience more than any other professional development in which I have participated. I have transformed my entire curriculum by using a systems approach with most every topic we cover. At the end of the year students are still able to articulate the complex interactions of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and the atmosphere when responding to prompts on weather and climate. The ongoing meetings to discuss ideas and develop lessons kept motivation and excitement high within our professional group. New ideas flowed like water from a stream, and the members of our cohort were always eager to share what worked in their classrooms. I personally was able to share some of my knowledge with teachers at the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers (MAST) conference twice and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference. Sharing my experience with other teachers who I hope may utilize this information is exciting, as I know how successful their students will be using this approach. I believe that understanding Earth as a system is of the utmost importance to students, as their lives will be impacted by the effects of climate change regardless of what is done to combat it.